NATIONAL LEAGUE CENTRAL
MILWAUKEE BREWERS (95 – 67 in 2021)
For the Milwaukee Brewers it’s going to come down to pitching. But then, it comes down to pitching for most teams. Reigning Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burns is once again joined by Brandon Woodruff and Freddy Peralta, arguably the best 1-2-3 combination in either league. Throw in Adrian Houser and Eric Lauer and you’ve got a staff that is the envy of every team in the league. Burns and Houser are both 29. The other three are 27 or younger and none of them has any history of injuries. This group should be around for a number of years. Coming out of the bullpen they’ve got Josh Hader and Devin Williams, again, two of the top relievers in the game. Their weakness is going to be hitting especially if somebody goes down with an injury because they don’t have a lot of depth. The pick-up of Andrew McCutchen and Hunter Renfroe is definitely going to help, but Christian Yelich remains the big question mark. He won the MVP award in 2018 and had possibly an even better year in 2019. It appeared that he would be a Super Star and team leader for years to come, someone the Brewers could build a team around. Since then, though, he hasn’t even been in the conversation. At age 30 he should be in his prime and this could be a make-or-break season for him. Still, I think the pitching will carry them through what is a very weak division anyway. This is the last year of an unbalanced schedule which means they should pick up a lot of wins against Cincinnati, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. They aren’t entirely without competition though.
ST. LOUIS CARDINALS (90 – 72)
Although it’s not a lot of competition. A lot can go wrong with the Cardinals causing it to veer off the rails. Start with the pitching. A 41-year-old Adam Wainwright heads up the rotation. That means the Cardinals will be counting a lot on Miles Mikolas and Dakota Hudson to step up and help carry the team. This, despite the fact that they combined for only 11 games last season. Hitting is going to be thin. Sure, they have Albert Pujols back and he did have something of a career revival playing the second half of last season for the Dodgers. But he is also 42 and collecting Social Security. Even if that revival where to continue he’s probably not an everyday player and not going to carry the team by himself if he was. St. Louis has a very good defensive outfield with youth in their favor. Their infield defense is pretty solid for that matter as well. If this group plays up to their potential, they could help offset some of the pitching shortcomings. Still, that’s a lot of ifs…if Wainwright still has some gas in the tank…if Mikolas and Hudson can bounce back and contribute some innings…if those will be meaningful innings…if the young outfield starts to break out. I doubt a wild card team will come out of this division so, in order to get into the playoffs, they will have to win the division outright, which means a lot has to go right and very little can go wrong. They will probably stay close to Milwaukee for most of the season, primarily because they should be able to beat up on the likes of Cincinnati, Chicago, and Pittsburgh just like Milwaukee. But there are too many question marks and more things that can go wrong than things that can go right with this team.
CHICAGO CUBS (71 – 91)
Last season, on July 26th, the Cubs took a victory over the Cincinnati Reds and were one game under .500 at 50 – 51. Not a great record, but respectable. They were in fourth place, just a game and a half out of second. Then, with the trade deadline looming, they had a fire sale. All within a week, they traded Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, Anthony Rizzo, Craig Kimbrel, and Ryan Tepera. Pretty much selling off most of the remnants of their 2016 World Series championship team. Predictably, they went from respectable to terrible, finishing the remainder of the season 21 – 40, in fourth place and 12 games out of third place. Of course, the big news this winter was the addition of Japanese phenom Seiya Suzuki. The addition of Marcus Stroman, Drew Smyly, and Wade Miley ought to improve a pitching staff that was probably one of the worst in Cubs history last year. Nick Madrigal at second base is an improvement also. But I doubt it will be enough, even in this weak division. The last time the Cubs rebuilt they had five consecutive losing seasons before turning it around in 2015 and winning the World Series in 2016. Hopefully, for Cubs fans, this rebuild doesn’t last that long. Of course, Cubs fans went 108 years between World Series championships, so they are used to waiting.
CINCINNATI REDS (83 – 79)
It wasn’t all that long ago the Cincinnati Reds appeared to be on the upswing. They were a playoff contender and maybe a player or two away from being a serious threat. Then 2020 happened and they never seemed to recover. Last winter they had bid farewell to Sonny Gray, Nick Castellanos, Tucker Barnhart, Jesse Winkler, Eugene Suarez, Wade Miley, and Amir Garrett. That leaves them with Joey Votto, Luis Castillo, Jonathan India, and some help. The good news is, they have some pretty good-looking prospects in their farm system. But the bad news is they are still prospects and at least a year or two away from making an impact on the big club. More good news is they will probably finish ahead of the Pittsburgh Pirates. But the bad news is they are a sub .500 team and will undoubtedly finish in fourth place.
PITTSBURGH PIRATES (61 – 101)
The Pittsburgh Pirates joined the National League in 1887 and have completed 132 seasons. In all that time they’ve only had nine seasons in which they’ve lost 100 games or more. Five of those seasons came before 1955. In 2021 they lost 100 or more gains for the third time this century and there’s a high probability they will do that again this year. There is not a lot of good you can say about this team. The pitching staff is probably the weakest in the National League and will likely carry them to a last place finish for the 4th consecutive year. Bryan Reynolds is a great centerfielder and Oneil Cruz has the potential to be a spectacular shortstop. They are 27 and 23 years old respectively and the Pirates would be wise to build a team around them, or they may end up as trade bait at the trade deadline.
hat’s the Central division with the West in the on-deck circle. I’ll get to them in a day or two and also add my predictions for the playoffs. Last week I screwed up. I thought I had already posted this one, but I hadn’t. Fortunately, I still had the rough draft, so it wasn’t too much trouble to go back and rewrite. So, I guess I struck out on that one. But I’m still swinging for the fences. So should you.
